If you can't read a post about an interesting public opinion survey without thinking someone is calling you and yours a racist, you probably shouldn't be commenting on this blog anyway.
If I were having a conversation with Bob Murphy and Octahedron on the street about a neat old dataset I found from 1968, and someone walked up to me and started telling me I had called Rand Paul a racist I would just walk away and take the conversation elsewhere. That's all that's happening people. It was my fault for engaging.
Everyone knows comments can get into extended back-and-forths on here. I don't mind that. I don't mind heated disagreements. I don't mind disagreements over meaningless little details that are at least present in the post. But I don't like two thirds of my comment section taken up by me futilely defending myself against outlandish accusations that have nothing to do with the content of the post. I post that content because I think it's interesting and I'd be interested in talking about it with people. If you don't think it's interesting, just don't comment please.
